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Today, nearly six billion of the world's seven billion people have mobile phones (UN ITU, 2013:1). As this technology has grown in popularity in the developing world, its potential capacity as a development tool has been explored by international agencies, governments, and businesses. While time will reveal the long-term effectiveness and morality of for-profit development ventures, M-PESA stands as an early example of aid agency, government, and commercial cooperation. Its capacity as a program to adapt and change to best suit the needs of its users, and its ability to overcome the many challenges to its success, serve as a precedent for development projects to come.

AbstractIn this invited commentary, I address the history and impact of feminist theory in family studies, casting a critical perspective on theorizing in both feminist studies and family studies. I assess indicators of the impact of feminist theory on the study of families, consider the enduring tensions in feminist family theory, and trace 4 generations of feminist theorizing and activism as a prelude to the ways that feminist theory critiques the patriarchal family. Through texts that reflect some of my own educational experiences, I discuss a selection of articles and books that have been influential in establishing the body of knowledge associated with feminist family studies. I conclude with a reflection on the life and work of Alexis J. Walker, to whom this article is dedicated.

Abstract: The theory of ambiguous loss is applied to structural ambiguity and personal transcendence in the parent‐child relationship following a same‐gender relational ending. Working recursively through the six guidelines of ambiguous loss (finding meaning, tempering mastery, reconstructing identity, normalizing ambivalence, revising attachment, and discovering hope), I use reflexive personal narrative to describe the impact of a child's psychological presence but physical absence on a nonbiological parent. Three themes are identified: (a) naming the problem—the loss of our family unit, (b) the paradox of presence and absence—fractured parent‐child ties, and (c) recursive discovery of meaning and hope. Implications for practice include the following: (a) applying ambiguous loss to nonlegal relational loss, (b) public policy—the right to same‐gender divorce, and (c) telling our stories as transformative practice.

Using a social-historical perspective, the author provides a synthesis of key feminist ideas that have been influential in the lives of women and their families. The author addresses a variety of feminist theories and strategies for knowledge production. These ideas are illustrated with examples from her own life course as a way to demonstrate the transformative value of feminist insights for family studies.